Quoting Habakkuk 1:5, in The Acts of the Apostles 13:41 –
” ‘ Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’ ”
What may be the “something in our days” that the Lord is doing – something that we might hardly believe?
The exact quote from Habakkuk reads as follows:
“Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.”
One might find it interesting to read further on in Habakkuk. My question above isn’t meant to follow the course of action found in Habakkuk, but to simply ask us to think about what God might have up-his-sleeve for our time – beyond what we can think or believe, beyond our wildest imaginations. God usually works beyond our imaginations, I think. We need to expand our expectations and hopes – to begin to understand and see through the perspective of God’s Way of things. There is another verse in the O.T. (don’t remember where right this moment) that says something like, “God’s eyes go to and fro looking for someone to prosper.”
Monthly Archives: April 2007
Another example of the sea change…
I’ve been saying for the last 10 years or so that there is a generational sea change being realized in North America, particularly in the U.S. To be honest, I’m less familiar with what is going on in Canada, but I suspect something similar.
I’ve said over and over again that the tail end of Generation X, Gen Y, and whatever is next, are of a different temperament when it comes to what resonates with them within the whole Christian melee and spirituality more generally. The Social Gospel of liberal, mainline Protestantism is dead (not to suggest working with the poor is dead, however!), the Baby-Boomer Seeker church experience has run its course, the liberal “god is dead” or perhaps “Process” theological perspectives have shown themselves to be not very satisfying to most people. The younger generations, so demographers and generationalists suggest, seek after something more solid and ancient (read, not trendy), something that restores a sense of mystery, and something that is respectful and none-condescending – unlike much of what passes for “modern” church.
I’ve said before that I hear more and more from younger people that they prefer the language of Rite I (Elizabethan English), they like the more formal liturgies, that they find resonances with contemplative and monastic-like spiritual experiences.
Now, I know that what I hear does not represent all young people and there are those who want absolutely nothing to do with High Church liturgy, old sounding English, or contemplative quiet. That’s fine and good, but on the whole, there is a difference between our parents’ generation and the younger generations. I find that older people in the Church (the 1928 Prayer Book generation) and the young seem to have much more in common then the big group in the middle that now controls the Church. Funny, how that works. But, it is a good thing that within The Episcopal Church, and Anglicanism at least as it has been traditionally practiced, there is an allowance for the flourishing of different forms to meet the differing needs of various peoples.
I’ve also found that young people tend to want to be challenged to think and seek, but not told what to think or do by “authorities.” They respect the authorities generally, but want them to help them seek and find rather than to indoctrinate them. No easy believe-ism for these folks!
Groups that do challenge, that take seriously the young people’s wants and desires and NEEDS, that provide a way to the faith that shows seriousness and respect, are growing. Those that pander to political and social whims are not. I believe we will shortly witness a migration out of the neo-conservative political and social “Culture War” churches.
So, I found it interesting today when I took two young seminarians to lunch. One is 23 (or 22, I don’t remember) and will probably be our seminarian this fall. The other is a young married guy. A lot of our conversation revolved around the Church, the young, what is happening, and what the future may hold. I listened, mostly (at least I think I listened, mostly).
These are smart guys. They go to General. They talked about their class and the attitudes and desires of their classmates. They even talked about an obvious difference between themselves and the “1960’s hold-overs” that reign right now in the Church. “If the church can survive past the baby-boomer generation, there might be hope,” from a rector friend of theirs who is a baby-boomer but recognizes both the good his generation has enabled and the baby they threw out with the bathwater.
I look at what is happening among the Emergent Church crowd (See the Episcopal/Lutheran Church of the Apostles in Seattle, Washington). Anyone who does not recognize the sea change either doesn’t want to acknowledge what is happening or is truly blind. Again, not all are going to like High Church liturgy, etc., but there is a fundamental change nevertheless.
These two guys said there is even a semi-secret group at General that is regularly saying the Rosary. The Oxford Tradition of General is not dead, despite the 1960’s “reformers” who want it to be so. How frustrating it must been for these folks whose life work has been to remake the Church into something else (what, I don’t know), only to see young people raising the hands in front of them saying, “NO!” The “reformers” are now “The Man,” and they are experiencing the rebellion of the youngsters and they don’t know what to do with it (after all, aren’t they the ones who are supposed to cast down tradition and authority and institutions?). Their work for naught, perhaps. Who knows…
One guy talked about his wife at Yale. An Episcopal Church in Newhaven has a regular chanted, candlelit Compline and the sanctuary is packed with young people. The rector doesn’t know what to do – totally surprised by the result. I’m not.
Today, in the New York Times, an article entitled “Monks Who Play Punk,” about a relatively new Roman Catholic monastic order in the Bronx.
“Upstairs, a 100 or more young people lingered in the quiet, candle-lighted sanctuary after an hour of prayer and song in front of the Eucharist. Brother Columba Jordan strummed his guitar and sang in a soft voice…. Two friars with heads bowed sat on either side of the alter, listening to the confessions of men and women waiting patiently in line.”
This is New York City, folks. I see this kind of thing all over the place! And, then, there is also Revolution Church, which gets at the same thing in a very different way.
“The monthly holy hour of prayer and song and ensuing music festival are part of an event called Catholic Underground…” [By the way, some of the monks have a Funk and Punk band, complete with long beards and gray, hooded habits.] “…the creation of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a religious order founded two decades ago this year in the Melrose section of the Bronx. Members own no personal possessions and beg even for their food. Nevertheless, the order’s 10 friars are bursting with new recruits at a moment when many Roman Catholic religious orders are struggling simply to maintain their current numbers.”
“Yet despite the simplicity of the order’s lifestyle, the Fr4iars of the Renewal see their message as one othat has a powerful appeal to young people in the 21st century.
‘We don’t advertise, we don’t promise you glow-in-the-dark Frisbees, none of that,” said the Rev. Bernard Murphy, the order’s head. ‘Young people are idealistic, and so we live in a community that lives a high ideal.'”
“‘The millennial generation is a spiritual generation,’ said Brother Paul Bednarczyk, of the vocation conference. ‘I think they are searching for meaning in their life, and I think they are looking to do something that is going to have an impact on the world.'”
In the article, as it ends, the are a couple comments made by people who the order ministers to. We read comments like, “When you’re running on an empty tank, they’re pretty much there to fill up the tank;” or this from a women who lost hear let when she had an encounter with a fire truck, “Ever since I starting coming here, I feel better about myself. I want to live again. Everything I eat here is spiritual.”
Interesting, ah?
I’m afraid a good many people in The Episcopal Church (and within many churches!) still don’t get it. Not only do they not get it, they actively try to keep their heads in the sand. As a seminary friend of mine used to say, “I can’t wait until this generation of leaders in the Church retires. Then maybe we can get back to being the Church.” I understand the point and count-point between all generations. There is always idealism among the young and a reaction to their parent’s generation. This is nothing new. Yet, I still say there is as much of a profound change in this generation and the Boomers as we saw between the War II generation and the Boomers. We shall see what happens.
What to do? Small things and big things.
I was sitting in the church office in St. Andrew’s House (where I also live) updating the church’s computer. The office used to be one of the rooms for the doorman when the building was the monastic house of the Cowley Fathers (Society of St. John the Evangelist), and so is right at the main entrance.
The children’s choir was practicing upstairs in the library and doing quite a good job. Soon, they stared bounding down the stairs. Two guys, around 11 years of age, good kids, came down first by themselves and I heard, “something something something, ‘damn’, something something something…”
Now, I know in comparison to students being shot to death hearing the word, “damn,” coming from an 11 year olds lips is quite minor. Yet, I stopped them as they neared the main door and said something like, “What did I hear?” They looked at me all quizzically like, and said, “huh?” I then added, “what was this about something something something, ‘damn’ something something?” They then dismissed me, continued talking to one another, and walked out.
Now, being dismissed for calling them on swearing doesn’t surprise me or really bother me. I understand it, but this minor incident does bring up a couple things.
First, why bother with such seemingly minor stuff?
When I was working as a missionary to college students in Europe, primarily in Munich, Germany, the family I lived with had a son around 5 years of age. He used to get all over me when I would say words like “shoot” or “dang” or some seemingly innocuous nothing word. His mom didn’t allow him to swear. Now, I thought this was a bit extreme, until she told me why even those words were out of bounds for her children. Do you know why they were out of bounds?
As the mom said, “There are so many very good and precise English words that can be used to express what you are thinking or feelings. I want my kids to use real words and not just filler words.” I like that. So, calling the kids on using a word like “damn” is to call them, at least from my perspective, to use real words – to be smart.
Secondly, many of the kids use swear words because they think it is “adult.” Now, in New York the “F-bomb” if an average New Yorker’s, “ah.” Saying “damn” is minor, yet it is something. If the kids yield to peer pressure and the belief that they will be more “something” if they use these words, smoke this stuff, do these things – which are all generally negative and play into their own natural rebelliousness – what is it leading them towards? Maturity? A strong and positive sense of self? True humility and right pride? Compassion? Strength? Intelligence? Self-control? I don’t think it leads to any of these things, but more towards insecurity, an expression of self that is ultimately personally and collectively destructive, and a form of bondage to what others demand that they be.
Incidentally, as adults, we have a responsibility to be an example for them that demonstrates the best of human potential, that which elevates the society to greater forms of civility, of positive expression, and altruism, not to banality and base, purulent behavior.
The question is how best to discourage what is not productive and not beautiful or not good, and how best to encourage the pursuit of the beautiful and the good – for Christians, to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Calling them on such things is part of it, but as they dismissed me in my lame attempt to be funny and corrective at the same time, sometimes the way we do just doesn’t work. Sadly, sometimes our example compounds the problem.
Perhaps I could have been more direct with less of an attempt to soften the chastisement (which I admit came from a place of insecurity on my part). Instead, perhaps I should have called them on it seriously and with authority and with explanation of why those kinds of words are inappropriate – be smart, don’t give in to peer pressure, let the words that come from your mouth be honoring to God, have a secure sense of self and recognize that growing up and being adult doesn’t been you have to incorporate into yourselves the worst of our humanity. Who knows?
You think this all a bit much to hang on a four-letter word? Mayor Giuliani demonstrated to New Yorker’s that if you focus on the small things, the big things tend to take care of themselves. Even his worst political opponents give him credit for that.
These are small things, but the more we call kids to grow into their better selves in the small things, I think the more we enable the big things to take care of themselves.
From Anselm
“Theology is faith seeking understanding.” Anselm
The threefold rule
From a review of the Anglican Brevery, by Addison H. Hart in Touchstone.
” My own sincere belief in the importance of the Daily Office was influenced by, among others, the late Anglican spiritual writer, Martin Thornton, whose books (in particular, Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation; Christian Proficiency; and English Spirituality) made a convincing case that the classical shape of a sound Christian piety is the regular (regular in the sense of a “rule of lifeâ€) commitment to the three essentials: Eucharist, Private Devotion, and the Daily Offices. If one practices this “threefold rule,†he will be adequately nourished, inwardly transformed, and possess the right God-given balance of objective and subjective elements in his spiritual life. Such a rule is as old as the faith itself.
Of the three ingredients, the Daily Office—praying the Psalms and listening to the Word—has the distinction of standing objectively above and beyond ourselves and our worst tendencies to become emotionally self-serving in prayer, a condition to which many subjective and often sentimental “devotions†lead. Rather, the Office lifts us up to the ongoing prayer of the Church, addressing us with authority even as we address the Lord. Its beauty and benefit to us is its very objectivity.”
Good comments from the ABC Rowan Williams in Canada
The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a very good lecture to seminary students in Canada. He lectured on the Church’s dealings with Scripture – it seems a fair and evenhanded treatment and a good corrective.
From the Archbishop’s 16th April 2007 Larkin Stuart Lecture, Toronto, Canada, entitled,
‘The Bible Today: Reading & Hearing’
“Popular appeals to the obvious leave us battling in the dark; and the obvious – not surprisingly – looks radically different to different people. For many, it is obvious that a claim to the effect that Scripture is ‘God’s Word written’ implies a particular set of beliefs about the Bible’s inerrancy. For others, it is equally obvious that, if you are not that savage and menacing beast called a ‘fundamentalist’, you are bound to see the Bible as a text of its time, instructive, even sporadically inspiring, but subject to rethinking in the light of our more advanced position. As I hope will become evident, I regard such positions as examples of the rootlessness that afflicts our use of the Bible; and I hope that these reflections may suggest a few ways of reconnecting with a more serious theological grasp of the Church’s relation with Scripture.”
Read the entire lecture.
———–
From the, From the Anglican Journal, Anglican Church of Canada:
Williams bemoans loss of listening to Scripture
Marites N. Sison, staff writer
Apr 17, 2007
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has lamented what he called the lack of “rootedness†in the Anglican approach to Scripture and said “we’ve lost quite a bit of what was once a rather good Anglican practice of reading the Bible in the tradition of interpretation.â€
He added: “We read the Bible less in worship. We understand and know it less…(we’re) either underrating it or misrating it, making it carry more than it’s meant to, as Richard Hooker says … We don’t have a very clear sense that we’re reading the Bible in company with its readers from the centuries and indeed, at the present moment.†Archbishop Williams made the observation in response to a comment about a seeming lack of theological tradition among Anglicans, following a Larkin-Stuart lecture delivered April 16 before an audience of mostly theology students from Wycliffe and Trinity Colleges in Toronto.
Archbishop Williams also said that he wished the current debate on sexuality that has bitterly divided the Anglican Communion would be framed in terms of “biblical justice and biblical holiness†instead of the prevailing conservative view of “biblical fidelity†and the liberal view of justice.
“I share the unease about simply opposing biblical fidelity and secular justice,†he said, adding that what was needed was a “proper theological discussion†of the issue.
In his lecture (named after Canon Cecil Stuart, long-time rector of Toronto’s St. Thomas’ Church, and its benefactor, Gerald Larkin), Archbishop Williams examined the current practice of reading the Bible and said Christians need to be reminded that, “before Scripture is read in private, it is heard in public.â€
Those who assume that the typical image of Scripture reading is a solitary individual poring over a bound volume should remember that for most Christians throughout the ages and in the world at present the norm is listening, said Archbishop Williams. This, he said, “underlines the fact that the church’s public use of the Bible represents the church as defined in some important way of listening: the community when it comes together doesn’t only break bread and reflect together and intercede, it silences itself to hear something.â€
Archbishop Williams also described the “fragmentary reading†of the Bible as “highly risky,†citing as an example Saint Paul’s use of same-sex relationships (Romans 1:27) as “an illustration of human depravity – along with other ‘unnatural’ behaviours such as scandal, disobedience to parents and lack of pity.â€
He said: “What is Paul’s argument? And, once again, what is the movement that the text is seeking to facilitate? The answer is in the opening of chapter 2: we have been listing examples of the barefaced perversity of those who cannot see the requirement of the natural order in front of their noses; well, it is precisely the same perversity that affects those who have received the revelation of God and persist in self-seeking and self-deceit. The change envisaged is from confidence in having received divine revelation to an awareness of universal human sinfulness and need.â€
There is a paradox in reading that Scriptural passage “as a foundation for identifying in others a level of sin that is not found in the chosen community, “ Archbishop Williams said, adding that this “gives little comfort to either party in the current culture wars in the church.â€
It is “not helpful for a ‘liberal’ or revisionist case, since the whole point of Paul’s rhetorical gambit is that everyone in his imagined readership agrees in thinking the same-sex relations of the culture around them to be obviously immoral as idol-worship or disobedience to parents,†he said. “It is not very helpful to the conservative either, though, because Paul insists on shifting the focus away from the objects of moral disapprobation in chapter 1 to the reading/hearing subject who has been up to this point happily identifying with Paul’s castigation of somebody else.â€
Archbishop Williams said the point he is making “is not that the reading I propose settles a controversy or changes a substantive interpretation, but that many current ways of reading miss the actual direction of the passage and so undermine a proper theological approach to Scripture.â€
Before his lecture, the Archbishop of Canterbury received honorary doctor of divinity degrees from Wycliffe College and Trinity College during a joint convocation.
I’m a Justin Martyr
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You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word†in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers! |
Google, funny
The people at Google have a sense of humor with otherwise dry and technical stuff, like directions:
Take 60 seconds to do this:
1. go to www.google.com
2. click on “maps”
3. click on “get directions”
4. type “New York, NY” in the first box (the “from” box)
5. type “London, England” in the second box (the “to” box)
(hit get directions)
6. scroll down to step #23
Virginia Tech
I really can’t bring myself to write much about the shootings in Blacksburg, VA – at Virginia Tech.
While working with students in Chi Alpha at Kent State, I went down to Virginia Tech a few times for Spring Break outreach. This was years ago, but the connection is still present.
After all my years working with students, I find this kind of happening so terribly troubling. For Virginia Tech, this will be their Kent State. I know how the shootings at Kent so many years ago remains in the very place of Kent. It will remain in and through and at Virginia for its continued history.
What can be said? Just pray for those who have died, for their family and friends, for the family of the shooter, and for the community of Virginia Tech.
Praise the Lord O My Soul (Greek Chant)
I cannot get over the performance of “Praise the Lord O My Soul (Greek Chant)” from Rachmaninov’s “Vespers” by the USSR Ministry of Culture. I’ve written about the female soloist before (can’t remember her name, now). I get chills every time I listen to it – over and over again.
I can’t get away from this.